Friday, November 19, 2010

Somehow I feel as though I'm obligated to like the band Lordi.They are, after all, a Finnish metal band, so it seems like kind of a no-brainer.And yet...I suppose it's the overwhelming cheesiness, both in terms of their lyrics and the whole costume and make up shtick, though normally I don't find cheesiness completely off-putting. After all, I grew up reading comic books written by Stan Lee himself, for god's sake.And yet...I can say, I think, that I do legitimately like Would You Love A Monsterman? (embedding disabled).And I kinda-sorta like Hard Rock Hallelujah (again, embedding disabled, which is, quite frankly, stupid).Lordi, by the way, won the 2006 Eurovision Song Contest, becoming the first Finnish band to do so.And yet...Still, I like the two songs linked above well enough to use up two of my ten free credits from Zune* to download them, and I thought that they were worth mentioning here.On some other fronts, I haven't gotten any news about my mom since Wednesday, at which time she seemed to be doing okay, though - and I guess this is normal - she'd needed a transfusion. She also was still recovering from some of the loopiness brought on by the anesthesia.My sister Kim was heading down there for the weekend to see her, and I'm sure she'll give me a report soon. Once she's out of ICU and in a regular room, she'll have a phone and I'll be able to call her.In the meantime I'm assuming that no news is good news.My flight home on Tuesday seemed to take much longer than it really ought to have, in particular the "25 minute" final approach to Dulles, which kind of felt like we'd turned around and gone back to Minneapolis in order to make the approach, and which actually took more than 45 minutes.On this trip I became convinced that airline employees don't know how time works, and they don't have a full understanding of the concept, or the terms.I mean, when they say something like, "We will begin boarding in approximately five minutes," they might as well be saying, "We will begin boarding in approximately...orange?"But, while travel is always a bit of a hassle, and I was sorry to leave my mom behind to recuperate without me, I needed to get back to my life (such as it is) and my job doing whatever the hell it is I do, and it felt good to be home.Of course, there were hours and hours of recorded TV piled up on my DVR waiting to be watched, which I kind of resent. How dare the television networks provide programming that I enjoy!I will say that sleeping in my own bed, which is not at all like a hospital bed, was awesome.Beyond the hours and hours of TV demanding to be watched, it only took me about an hour to get everything squared away and to get back into the standard swing of things.It took even less time than that at work, since I'd kept up with it as much as I could while away, and we're entering a slow time of year with the approaching holidays and the end of the year.Yesterday I actually worked from home in the afternoon, as my morning was taken up by my three-month check-up with my doctor, and a dentist appointment.One of my crowns had been loose, so I'd gone in to get that fixed. Given that the tooth to the left of it was also a crown, and the tooth to the right of it would eventually need a crown, the dentist recommended that I get a bridge put in. My other option was to have a post put into the loose one and then eventually get the crown on the other, but I chose to go with the bridge. So now I have one big fake tooth that's molded to look as though it's three separate teeth.Right now I just have a temporary one in place and I'll have to go back to get the permanent one put in.The dentist was examining his work and told me to "smile big." He assured me that no one would be able to tell the difference, particularly since you can't see my gumline anyway. I was going to say that people wouldn't be able to tell the difference because I don't smile, but I remained silent.

A Conversation At Work:

Me: I actually used the word "synergy" today. I even did the hand gesture, with the interlocking fingers.Dan: Were you disgusted with yourself?Me: Yes. Next thing you know I'll be talking about OBIDA or some shit.

*I got a free one-month "Zune Pass" with ten free downloads as part of the AT&T Entertainment Pack that came with my upgrade to the Samsung Focus, a Windows Phone 7 device. So far I really dig my new phone, and I'll be writing a little more on the subject at some point.

1 comment:

Anonymous
said...

Synergy? One of my most recent powerpoint presentations, to an entire HR department, involved contrasting/comparing Agile software development and Six Sigma lean practices. Bad enough that I had to do it, but even worse, I came up with the idea.